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Last Week at ACAM (11/14/15-11/22/15)

Had my usual fun at ACAM for my annual vacation. About 20 gamers were present including several world champions just having some fun for the week.

I managed to pull off a new personal best at "Playboy" pinball (the 1976 version) with 1.947M...unrecorded but a memorable moment for me as that is one hell of a score.

I also pulled off a new Aurcade WR on "Cosmic Alien" of 293K...getting back into the swing of things, just wishing I had more time to practice after work nowadays as this was my only game played of this title all week.

On my favourite title "Super Cobra" I managed a 187K on my second game all week after a year of not touching the game, and last November I only played it a few times so it was more like two years without serious practice for me. This was my second game played as well last week, and four of the game deaths were due to sheer stupidity and being "rusty", dying at the end of the 3rd maze. Had I not been rusty this would have had some decent potential with all those extra ships at that point thus the one that would have been awarded after the 3rd booty. Oh well...next year.

Lastly I finally managed to crank out a 4000+ score on arcade "Depthcharge"...no way near the arcade WR but a first for me even though I've scored 4000+ dozens of times on MAME including a 4420 or so as submitted to MARP. My arcade best for Aurcade now stands at 4,170.

Could not get a good game of "Pandora's Palace" going, reaching 565-585K at best. No big deal...I will go for it again next year after more practice. I've reached a 1.7M recently on MAME in practice so I am confidant that next year I will set a new mark.

On an amusing note, five times in a row no less, I beat my friends at "Daytona" on each of the three race courses, nearly finishing the "Expert" course for the first time ever. What is so amusing about this is (A) I don't even have a driver's license nor can I drive for real, and (B) I was successfully, more or less, using manual transmission as opposed to automatic, which for a non-driver is usually a problem. My friends feel that my "Daytona" success is because as a non-driver I have a lack of fear about crashing. Who knows...at least I won :)

Otherwise there were a few new records established by some of the visiting gamers, I think most being on "Death Race" from 1975.

It was a much smaller crowd this year which allowed me to focus more on gaming and simply enjoying myself. Time was back in 2003 when I first went for a week in November that I was in the arcade from around 8:45am-closing each and every night for the entire 8-day stretch. Now, nearly 13 years later, I think I spent only 1/3 as much time playing games as back then. Getting older has changed my drive to go for records...I still go for them on a few titles, but I no longer try to be good or at least better than average on every title...only so much time so I'm more choosy about how I spend my time now...a natural progression in the life of a gamer, I suppose.

It was nice seeing you as well as everyone else who was around Rob. Our discussions were very interesting and I very much enjoy getting to know more of the history from your perspective.

I have a great deal of respect for everything you've done for the community including these trips. This was the first time I've ever been down to Funspot during the November outing I can say it was the best trip i've made there thus far. It's a nice atmosphere in the "off season" of Funspot and the people that did show up were all great to be around.

I think this outing reflects greatly on the camaraderie of the community as I was warmly greeted by everyone from the "scene" that I recognized and vice versa, I only wish the rest of the world could see how we all treat our peers and how great of a community this is.

In any case, it was a great trip and I hope to join you and make it out again next year if I can.

Indeed, was great seeing everyone. I played a bunch of Galaga '88 and Rally-X for most of the time. The latter of which my best of the weekend was a 111k which is my 3rd best arcade score on it so I was pleased. I completed boards 8, 9 and 10 on 1 car which I'd never done before. Unfortunately, I had died 3 times previous to that on the red boards, so I didn't have any lives to play the late boards with, finishing with the 111k. Frustrating, as that had potential for a huge game.

I encourage everyone to come up to FS and hang out as Aaron mentioned it's a great time and Nov is a much more chill atmosphere with most of the games to yourself.

November, for me, was the solution to the inherent challenges of the May/June event...too many gamers crowding around the titles, limited time to compete so less time to socialize with your friends that you see perhaps once per year, and the biggest reason of all, it's better to relax and focus on your gaming without the worries about your ranking or any other issue(s) at hand. And as for waiting until your favourite game opens up to play, that is never a problem in November.

Sounds like a great time. I was planning on a November trek but decided to wait until sometime in the New Year.

How did you get your score entered into Aurcade? The Funspot staff I spoke to during my weekend visit last October (Gary wasn't there) weren't familiar with Aurcade and they weren't sure how any high score would be recorded/entered. Did you have to have a ref watch, or was it enough to show them the high score after you were done?